First Love

Guest (Male): Welcome to First Love with Dr. Robin Cassis and Dr. Nathan Cassis, where faith meets real life. In this weekly broadcast, you'll discover practical and spiritual keys to reclaim God's story in your life, deep in your relationship with Jesus, and encounter him as your first love, whether for the first time or all over again. No topic is off limits as we make Jesus real, relevant, and relational. Stay with us. Your journey back to first love starts now.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Hello everybody and welcome back to First Love. My name is Pastor Nathan Cassis, soon to be Dr. Nathan Cassis, and this is Dr. Robin Cassis sitting across from me. Dr. Robin, how are you today?

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Awesome. And we are just so privileged to be with you once again, coming into your homes or your car, wherever you're listening, and bringing the message of First Love.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, we actually ended with just a little taste of the subject of choice last week.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so it would be good for us now to open this up deeper because I think it's tied in so strong with God's First Love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, very very true. So tonight we're going to continue from the scripture of Lamentations 3, His mercies are new every morning, and we're coming from that scientific exploration that we've been doing about the cerebral spinal fluid, but we're going into a deeper aspect tonight about the power of choice. We can apply those mercies and we can have them in our reservoir, in our bank from the Holy Spirit. But unless we choose to think better or choose to do something different than we've been doing the day before, we will end up reliving the same circumstance or same emotional outplay

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: again.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think that we will and we make the choice a deliberate choice, a deliberate choice, you know? And in the Bible, that's men of God made the choice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Choice is so important, you know, because God first gave us a choice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And you see what we do, what I know that this is what I do, I choose to give my choice back to him because I know that he loves me and that would be the best place for my choice to be in the hands of my God.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. Wow. And so that is kind of where we want to end tonight. We're going to end on giving our choice back to the Lord. But we also have to understand that our humanity requires that we make the choice to bring God's choice into position because that is the connection between heaven and earth. So my first scripture that I want to bring out here is Philippians 2 13 and we all know this scripture. It says for it is God who works in you both to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Now that's a really important scripture because here the Lord is saying that well Paul is saying that the Lord is saying to us both to will and to act, right? But will to will something is to not choose it. And to act on something is to not choose it. It is the result of choosing it. So God puts a desire in us to will for something. We give our will to something which is our inner desire. But there's a connection point between will and act. And that's where our humanity comes into play because unless we choose what God has put in us to will, therefore we cannot act on that thing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yeah, I totally agree. I understand that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And so when we come to the understanding of new mercies and how how can I choose better Pastor Nathan? Well, if you are in a mindset where you have been choosing, I just like to bring it into a counseling perspective, you've been choosing inadequacy, you've been choosing rejection. You have to choose different because God can put inside of you with that will power of his own spirit to will to want different. But until you choose different, you don't get different.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Okay, so it's a decision.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: It's a decision. Paul said these things. He made the decision to go. He decided to go.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so you're tying it up with decision.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Okay.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. And something that's very important about love is we don't understand that love is a decision.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: See, we get the feeling of love. We get the emotion of love. But at its core essence, love is a belief. And a belief is a decision. You have decided. You have to decide each moment of the day to love someone.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So it's decision to believe.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: To love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. And so God gives everyone the choice in them, right? When we go back to the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3, the fall of man, he never ever took Adam and Eve's choice away. He put two trees in the garden for that purpose because he never wanted them to be able to say you've chosen for me to love you. So it was always of their own independent choice, God saying I don't want to be in a relationship with someone through obligation.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: I think I understand that is and it's true too that in the the garden, there was a choice. And the choice brought belief and love together, all three of them working together because it has to happen that way that if we make the choice, there has to be belief there.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Exactly.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And then action will come.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Exactly. And see, we've been talking about, you know, this power of the gospel that the Lord, we said last week and I was able to bring someone through as were you Dr. Robin, someone who called and asked a question about how can we be his first love, right? Well, I want to paraphrase it. Let me put it like this. Not only were we his first love, we were his first choice.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: The only choice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: See? And that's the key here. Even before the Book of Revelations says the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, even before sin had occurred, he was slain before the foundation of the world. Now if you try to wrap your head around that, you can't really because it's in an infinite realm. But what the writer John and even Peter confirms it again, right? He's saying there before sin even occurred, Jesus had already destined in his heart to connect man to the father.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So he made the choice. He made the choice. See, sin was not the reason.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Love was the reason. He made the choice to die for us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He made the choice to die because he loved us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yep. Exactly it.

Guest (Male): You're listening to First Love with Dr. Robin and Dr. Nathan Cassis. The story isn't finished yet and neither is what Jesus wants to reveal to your heart today. Let's jump back in and pick up right where we left off.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And one more scripture, Ephesians 1 4 says just as he chose us in him. Now here's the key. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So he chose us, right?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Before the foundations of the world. And this means what did he choose us for?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That we would Would you repeat that scripture?

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That we would be foreordained

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: known

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: and foreknown for him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And not because we were sinners.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But these are the reasons why he chose us because I believe that if people would explore this, you would find you could begin to believe in God's first love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. That's so true. And Pastor, the power of choice like neurobiologically is so important to understand because when we choose, there are things embedded in our choices. There are emotions. There are feelings. There are certain thought patterns. And so what happens is our choice creates a symbiotic relationship between our neurophysiology and our spiritual makeup. So someone might be thinking why can't I choose different? Why do I keep falling into the same cycle or the same pattern of doing the same thing over and over again? Because you have to understand neurobiologically the choice has embedded information.

It's coded in. So until you begin to choose different and break that symbiotic connection, that internal mapping is constructed to stay consistently put together. So a different choice actually breaks the internal mapping. If I continue to choose rejection, I'm creating an internal world of rejection. And the more I choose rejection over love or fear or depression over faith or even anger, right? Over love. These things internally construct my world. And the more I choose them, the more protein synthesis I give to that neural pathway. So it's like a highway. I begin to build a little, you know, road dirt pathway with the first choice.

And then if I choose it again, I add a little bit more structure to it. And before you know it, if I choose it about 5,000 times, it's a fully fledged four lane highway with traffic coming in and out. And so until I choose to deconstruct that highway, that highway will have the prevalence of traffic in my mind. So it'll pull my attention selectively away from choosing something. You know, Joshua said choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. And in that scripture there, Joshua 24 15, he's saying I'm creating a different choice.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I think that if we could just come back onto where I've come from and that is

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: more so not our choice, but God's choice, the Lord Jesus's choice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That has to mean something in a different way to people who are struggling with the Lord

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm. Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: because the choice was his.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He didn't have to come and do it. He didn't have to die for sinners. He died because of his love for them that they would be free from any sin.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. It's a misnomer to believe that Christ came because of sin. If Christ came because of sin, then sin is the connection point to my Lord and Savior.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's exactly what I'm saying. It is not the connection point.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: And And then when I get to heaven in the eternal states within where there is no sin, will I have no connection with him? See, I have to have something that is greater than sin itself. Sin was the effect of not choosing him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: There it is. It's the effect of not choosing him.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes. Yes. I chose the knowledge of good and evil in Adam because we were all in Adam when he made that choice and Eve. But in Adam, I chose that rather than choosing the tree of life. So because I didn't choose the tree of life, the effect is distance from God, cut off from fellowship. Now here's the key, not relationship. There is a difference. Most people believe that sin cut us off from relationship, but that doesn't give wind to this scripture where it says he foreknew, foreordained us. So he held on to us as you always teach us.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes. He made the first move.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: He held on to us. He grabbed a hold of us. And because he grabbed a hold of us even when we let go of him,

Dr. Robyn Kassas: and that's my key. This is what I teach

Dr. Nathan Kassas: He never let go. Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: that it was God's initiation.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He initiated the first move.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it. Please continue on this.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so when he initiated the first move, he held on to us. We responded by holding on to him.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But Pastor, even if we let go, does that mean he's not holding on anymore? He is holding on.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And that's because he made the first move to take hold of us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Wow. And even Paul says that later on in Philippians chapter 3, moving from Philippians 2 13, he says it's not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it so that I may grab a hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Hold of me. That's the one I love it.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So he's saying my life is reaching for why he grabbed a hold of me in the first place.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, it's his love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, it was more than just to save me.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No no no. It was to have

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It was to have a relationship with me because see day seven was the day that God rested in creation. But they were created for dominion. And it says he came in the cool of the evening and walked with them. This is before sin was even present. He wanted to do something after day seven. And you know what that was? Day eight, it was rain with them.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And But that didn't happen.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: But it didn't happen because they chose rather than him.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Then you see what I 'm saying here, the initiation was him.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He took the initiation to do that very thing. And that meant then he formed his love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He formed his love by being the first to make the choice.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Well, that 's why you're one of your favorite scriptures, Jeremiah 1 5, he can say before you were formed, I knew you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's why he can say that.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: See? Paraphrase, before you were formed, I chose you.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, I chose you.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. Or David, you've known my days written down in your book as yet none of them had come to be. You knew all my days. See, this is a And we could get very, you know, on the tinkering of predestination, but it's a See, people confuse predestined with predetermined.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes, there's a difference.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah, predetermined is I have been thought everything has been thought for me. Predestined is God has given me the choice in his predestined will. I just have to choose it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Yes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: So

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's our part to play.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: That's our part.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Our part to play is choosing.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But if we just come around this and bring a new understanding of God's choice and also that Jesus chose to come and die because of his love and to come and bring the father's love to us, then we will get a new understanding of the cross.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is it.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And I want us to talk about the cross because the cross is important because people see the cross with the wrong eyes.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And it's an important thing to understand because when we have the right perspective of the cross, it will transition our walk from one of performance to one of love. We talked last week of that statement about working from love, living from love, not for love. And so if you think that he came as the result of sin, then sin is what connected you to him. So that means he came to fix you. So if he's come to fix you, you can't fix something without saying it's not working, it's not good enough.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: But you know when you said about if we're connected to by sin, then that's how we look at it and see it. And so therefore if we feel sin, we will not be connected because this is the thing, the channel that brings us to him. But that's not what he put there. It was his love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. Well, some people don't feel connected to God unless they're being corrected for sinning.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: See, that is the wrong wrong understanding.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Some people actually go through life feeling more connected to God through their sin. They used to God telling them you're doing the wrong thing. They used to God saying you need to change this. And it becomes what I again said last week, behaviorism. Behaviorism connects us to him, not relationship. See, when God is in a He's always good with me. So it's a misnomer to say when God is good with me. But in my understanding, when I'm not sinning or I'm in a good place with my relationship with the Lord, sometimes you can feel even more disconnected in that place.

If you have this performance mindset, if you have this reality in your inner world view that my sin is what connects me to God being something manifested in my life.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: That's a very warped understanding.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: It's very warped. It's very performance based. It's very very warped. Yeah.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so therefore someone who has that can't accept God's love.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: No. And that's why a lot of people find it hard. Again, if he came to fix me, then in order to fix me, he has to reject me as not enough. When you fix something, you have to acknowledge that yes, it's broken, but it's not enough. So by fixing it, you're inadvertently saying it's not enough. I'm rejecting it. So that then causes me in a mindset if I take that on to go well, if I'm not enough, what do I have to do to be enough? So it starts the performance treadmill of Christianity. You know, there are three things that we talk about in understanding how to be secure in love, right?

I'm doing a a parenting course and I I believe that this ties in. Love can be incomplete for three different reasons. The first reason is that we think that others have more attention of love's attention. So what we do is we either compete for it or we have to earn it. Those are the two main reasons why love in our life is incomplete. We either think that we have to compete for love against something else. It could be a parent with a kid, it could be the job, it could be a marriage, it could be friends.

If that person feels they have to compete for that person's love against the job, against the career, against the marriage, against whatever it is, then their love will be incomplete. But the other reason is that the other person could think well, I have to earn their love. And this is what we do with God. We think that we have to earn his love, perform for it. And then we even say I have to compete for it against other things. So we have to compete for it even against in God's way, his will. We compete for it.

Do you love me as much as you love your church? Do you love me as much as you love the kingdom? Do you love me as much as you love your will? Do you love me as much as you love the right thing for me to do? These are all the arguments that come up in the head. But if we come back to the fact that he first chose us, then there is no competing.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: There is no earning.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: No. That's correct. You cannot earn God's love because Jesus is the one that's already earned that love

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: for us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: This is the one.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: By coming, making the choice to love us and to die for us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yep.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: So we need to see more and more. We have to see God is not looking at us.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: He's looking at the love that Jesus has for us. And that compels him to love more and more and to do whatever the Lord wants us to have.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Yeah. And again, John 3 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Now I want to bring out a depth of the scripture.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Here we go.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: God loved the world, but Jesus

Dr. Robyn Kassas: loved the church.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: came for the church. But Dr. Robin, I just want to throw it over to you now for the final word to encourage our listeners on what they need to be filled up with this episode tonight.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: Well, I think we come back to who initiated the first move. If we can get that right, if we can believe that, if we can decide and will to believe that, then we are going to change not only our worldview, but our theology. Our theology is being challenged here because we've always come as a sinner.

Dr. Nathan Kassas: Mm.

Dr. Robyn Kassas: And so I just want to say tonight, whoever is listening to this and I sense in my spirit from the Lord there is a father that has four children and those children have in some areas of their lives disappointed him. But if you listen to this podcast tonight and you start to apply apply the cross the way it's been explained, you will see that you will receive a change.

Guest (Male): Thanks for spending time with us today on First Love. If today's message spoke to you, share it with someone. And if you're looking for more teachings, visit www.firstlove.org that's firstlove.org for more. We'll be back next week, same time, same truth. And as you go, don't forget the one who loved you first is still loving you best.